Equity sets record straight on new claims in OIA documents

Equity sets record straight on new claims made in
OIA documents yesterday

NZ Actors Equity
Press Statement 27 February 2013 3:30pm

NZ Actors
Equity has rejected claims by the producers of The Hobbit
that Equity and its sister union Media, Entertainment & Arts
Alliance were financially motivated in their attempts to
gain fair wages and conditions for NZ actors working on the
film. The claim was contained in statements by Peter Jackson
this week and also included in the OIA documents released
yesterday.

NZ Actors Equity and its members have only ever
been motivated by a desire to improve the working lives of
New Zealand performers who have for years struggled on
non-union contracts. NZ is one of the few countries in the
English-speaking world where actors have no right to share
in the financial success of their work or the right to a
standard contract that protects their basic entitlements
such as sick leave.

As the documents released yesterday
unequivocally show, NZ Equity’s attempts to bring NZ terms
and conditions for performers into line with those of the
rest of the world in no way placed the film’s production
in NZ in jeopardy.

NZ Equity members voted that MEAA would
collect residuals earned by actors and distribute them.
Residuals are payments for the re-use of performers work in
recorded media. The MEAA charges a five per cent fee on
residual payments for members and a 15 per cent fee for
nonmembers.

As the vast majority of New Zealand Actors are
members of Equity (over 600 members out of 900 actors
counted in the census), the majority of New Zealand actors
would be charged a five per cent fee.

This fee is used to
pay the salary of an accountant and several financial staff
to chase up payments from a multitude of producers around
the world with residual agreements, dating as far back as 30
years. This is way in which residuals are processed
world-wide.

Any remaining money from fees goes to the
Equity Foundation for education and training purposes
including acting master-classes for performers. This
benefits both actors and producers by creating a growing
pool of highly skilled actors. The MEAA and NZ Equity do not
profit from the collection of residuals. Performers are the
sole beneficiaries of residual commissions.

NZ Actors
Equity today also noted that two of New Zealand’s most
treasured actors Jennifer Ward-Lealand and Robyn Malcolm
were subject to death threats and harassment as a
consequence of Government and producer actions following the
calling off of the boycott.

At a point when the producers
and the Government were fully aware that the dispute had
been resolved, the producers deliberately mobilised film
crews, fans and the country against NZ Actors Equity and
many well-known actors. The ensuing protest march was
potentially an explosive situation.

It was an extremely
unsafe time for many union members. Robyn Malcolm and
several other Equity members and staff were confronted by
angry members of the public in the streets of Wellington and
were labelled “Hobbit killers”. Others were subjected to
death threats by email and phone; and a violent cartoon was
circulated depicting Robyn Malcolm bleeding with a wooden
stake driven through her heart. Jennifer Ward-Lealand was
subjected to vitriolic attacks and one top actors’ agency
was also targeted, receiving threatening phone calls. They
were labelled on national television “damaged goods” and
were painted internationally as ringleaders of an
unreasonable boycott. All this because the government and
the producers failed to communicate that the boycott was off
and that the Hobbit would remain in NZ. Personal and
creative relationships dating back decades were destroyed as
actors were deliberately pitted against others in the
industry.

The documents confirm that the NZ employment
laws were changed in haste and against internal advice from
the government. Equity calls for these changes to be
reversed at the earliest opportunity. We urge the NZ
Government to release the last remaining secret document –
the Crown Law opinion about the dispute. This should allow
the NZ industry to finally lay the Hobbit dispute to
rest.

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